Main opposition calls on Sri Lankan government to take action to avoid Saudi Arabian job losses

Sri Lanka's main opposition United National Party (UNP) today called on the government to take quick action to avoid the possible loss of thousands of jobs for Sri Lankans in Saudi Arabia.

UNP General Secretary, Tissa Attanayake told the local media that the government has so far remained silent on the issue.

Attanayake said the government needed to tell the country how it planned to handle the situation.

The Saudi Arabian job crisis began after the Saudi Arabian National Recruitment Committee said the country should stop recruitments of housemaids from Sri Lanka until the Sri Lankan government agrees to implement the Memorandum of Understanding it signed with the Association of Licensed Foreign Employment Agencies (ALFEA) two months ago in Riyadh.

The Committee said Sri Lanka has failed to honor the agreement which was to take effect from September this year.

However, the Sri Lanka says that ALFEA represents only 200 out of 800 foreign employment agencies in the country and it is not lawfully authorized to sign international agreements on behalf of the Sri Lankan government.

Reportedly some 500,000 Sri Lankans are employed in Saudi Arabia. Sri Lankan housemaids send around $1 billion of their remittances to Sri Lanka, a Saudi report said.